It wasn't that they were in love, exactly; and if they did have sex from time to time, well. That didn't interfere with anything.

He had gone out to take a leak. Paused, one elbow an acute angle behind his head as he scratched the opposite shoulder blade. The bathroom smelt of a mixture of damp and chemically sweet women's deodorant. The bath could have done with cleaning; there were a couple of mounds of dirty clothes on the floor. The bras and pants drying on the rack were greying a little around the edges, the lace pilled up. That stupid, scratchy cheap nylon lace. He closed his eyes and fantasised idly for a few moments, then went back into the kitchen.

She had an inelegant laugh, and she could drink as much as he could, and she wore functional, barely feminine clothing, mid-priced from some department store.

There was a game show on. It was surreal, quite surreal. Really funny, although it wasn't meant to be. She kept kind of spluttering her laugh back, when she had beer in her mouth. He unearthed the end of a bottle of vodka, dug out two mugs and divided the inch-and-a-half that was left between them. Poured in grapefruit squash, then water. He remembered her telling him once, 'It's not even real vodka, this cheap stuff. Look, it says grain. Vodka is made from potatoes.' He hadn't believed her.

She teased him a bit when he came back in; 'It should be whisky, you know? Since we're private investigators now.' Comfortably drunk, she slumped graceless and warm against him.

When they had sex, it was - she was very much there, always; it was sometimes messy, but that was part of the fun. Her solidity, her strong, scaled-down frame, the creases under her breasts and where her thighs joined her body. The way she'd laugh, and the way he'd never feel uncomfortable waking up in this flat that wasn't his own and poking around for beer and orange juice for breakfast.

-

Afterwards, Asuka's family came down to take care of the flat, and everything. Yohji had already applied for a transfer to another department.